News

News

• September 21, 2020 21 Sep'20

  Google Meet updates close in on Microsoft Teams, Zoom

  The latest Google Meet features let participants see up to 49 people on-screen at a time. Other enhancements include better control over who gets access to meetings.

• September 18, 2020 18 Sep'20

  With cloud-based ERP, customers can focus on outcomes

  Infor general manager Rod Johnson discusses the company's strategy for delivering its Infor CloudSuite ERP systems, and why it's placing such an emphasis on customer experience.

• September 18, 2020 18 Sep'20

  Google utilizes AI for Series One Meet hardware

  Google partners with Lenovo in developing video conferencing hardware for the Google Meet service. The Series One device uses Google silicon to boost its AI capabilities.

• September 18, 2020 18 Sep'20

  Oracle CX upgrades focus on field service, contact center

  Oracle adds self-service features, field tech tools and call center capabilities to its CX stack in response to customers' business needs in pandemic.

• September 17, 2020 17 Sep'20

  Multi-tenant ERP's value touted at Inforum 2020

  The Infor CloudSuite approach includes industry-specific functionality intended to make cloud ERP implementations more efficient and less complex while yielding a faster ROI.

• September 17, 2020 17 Sep'20

  What's next for Epicor after its sale

  Epicor Software Corp.'s newest owner, private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice LLC, may deliver new investments in the firm's ERP systems -- at least, that's the hope.

• September 16, 2020 16 Sep'20

  Amazon Career Day makes strong pitch with a soft touch

  Amazon's virtual career day put the best possible face on the firm in its push to fill 33,000 corporate and tech jobs as well as 100,000 operations jobs.

• September 16, 2020 16 Sep'20

  Box Shield, mobile app upgrades on the way

  Among a slew of coming upgrades, Box Inc. goes after Microsoft's government business with FedRAMP High certification.

• September 16, 2020 16 Sep'20

  Faster iPads unveiled at Apple Event

  At this week's Apple Event, the company unveiled an iPad Air powered by the company's fastest A14 processor. Apple also introduced the eighth-generation iPad.

• September 15, 2020 15 Sep'20

  Nvidia's Arm Limited buy could shake mobile industry

  Nvidia announced a $40 billion deal to buy chip designer Arm Limited. Now, it must convince regulators and smartphone makers that it will keep the company neutral.

• September 14, 2020 14 Sep'20

  Android 11 release raises separation of work, personal data

  The new Android 11 release keeps work and personal information separate, while limited permissions give users greater control of their data.

• September 14, 2020 14 Sep'20

  Air Force sets new course on digital skills training

  The U.S. Air Force has agreements with multiple learning management vendors to upgrade its technical training. It wants its personnel to use the same tools as the private sector.

• September 11, 2020 11 Sep'20

  Zoom launches two-factor authentication

  Video conferencing company Zoom has introduced two-factor authentication, a feature already available in competing products from Cisco and Microsoft.

• September 10, 2020 10 Sep'20

  Slack leans on Connect for future growth

  Slack executives tout Slack Connect as a source of additional revenue over the next four months. The collaboration company reported this week slowing revenue growth.

• September 10, 2020 10 Sep'20

  Episerver to buy Optimizely, adds to CMS, e-commerce suite

  As Episerver evolves into a digital experience platform under new leadership, the company adds native A/B testing functionality by acquiring Optimizely.

• September 10, 2020 10 Sep'20

  AWS: Cloud migration doesn't require a move to S/4HANA

  The AWS approach for migrating SAP systems to the public cloud doesn't emphasize a move to S/4HANA but enables customers to go at their own pace.

• September 08, 2020 08 Sep'20

  Lower prices could bolster declining global smartphone sales

  Lower prices, the buildout of 5G networks and the eventual need for device replacement could help pull global smartphone sales out of their current funk.

• September 08, 2020 08 Sep'20

  SAP sets alternatives to master/slave, blacklist/whitelist

  SAP is making language for documentation, training materials and user interfaces and on websites more inclusive.

• September 08, 2020 08 Sep'20

  Salesforce e-commerce capabilities to expand with Mobify

  Salesforce beefs up its headless e-commerce platform capabilities for enterprise retail customers with the acquisition of Mobify, a Canadian headless commerce hosting vendor.

• September 08, 2020 08 Sep'20

  TikTok data could be gold mine for ERP, HR systems

  TikTok's data and AI tech may have applications beyond marketing. That could be why Microsoft and Oracle, two enterprise tech powerhouses, may be interested in the company.

• September 03, 2020 03 Sep'20

  Emerging Genesys cloud strategy makes Amazon friend and foe

  Amid a leadership change, Genesys retools cloud strategy, adds partnerships with Infosys, Adobe and others as its relationship to Amazon and AWS veers toward 'co-opetition.'

• September 03, 2020 03 Sep'20

  Zoom quarterly earnings show sharp rise in paying customers

  Zoom reports a massive expansion in small and big businesses, as the company's revenue and income increase exponentially.

• September 03, 2020 03 Sep'20

  To improve veteran hiring, U.S. turns to AI platform

  The U.S. is nearing a final decision on a job matching platform to improve the odds that military veterans, who are leaving the service, will find the right civilian occupation.

• September 02, 2020 02 Sep'20

  Users demand threaded replies to Microsoft Teams messages

  Microsoft users have taken to a forum to demand threaded replies to Teams messages. The feature for organizing group conversations is already possible on Slack and Webex Teams.

• September 02, 2020 02 Sep'20

  Microsoft launches Word transcription tool

  The new Microsoft Word transcription feature makes crafting notes from an audio file a more streamlined process. The service is available with a Microsoft 365 subscription.

• September 01, 2020 01 Sep'20

  Salesforce Field Service features added to Winter '21 Release

  Salesforce Field Service users can better pinpoint arrival times for their customers as well as other new capabilities coming in the Winter '21 Release.

• August 31, 2020 31 Aug'20

  Tech industry diversity and inclusion begins with rooting out BS

  Being black, a woman and bisexual gives long-time diversity and inclusion consultant Risha Grant a clear perspective on issues many high-tech companies have in creating racial harmony.

• August 31, 2020 31 Aug'20

  ThoughtSpot Embrace opens SAP HANA to business users

  The ThoughtSpot Embrace BI platform could put SAP HANA data into the hands of business users.

• August 28, 2020 28 Aug'20

  Microsoft ending 365 IE 11 support in 2021

  With Microsoft 365 IE 11 support coming to an end, organizations must prepare for the day when relying on the browser is no longer an option, industry observers said.

• August 28, 2020 28 Aug'20

  Lifesize to buy Kaptivo, eyes other acquisitions

  Lifesize's Kaptivo acquisition would expand its collaboration capabilities. The video conferencing company said IP telephony or messaging could be a part of future deals.

• August 28, 2020 28 Aug'20

  Kronos-Ultimate get new name; Workday gets a co-CEO

  The newly merged Kronos and Ultimate Software will be called UKG or Ultimate Kronos Group. Its big competitor, Workday, had an announcement of its own this week, a co-CEO.

• August 28, 2020 28 Aug'20

  Trump, Biden H-1B work visa positions take shape

  The way President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden talk about H-1B work visas is strikingly different -- and so are the Silicon Valley donors supporting their candidacies.

• August 28, 2020 28 Aug'20

  Twilio Flex deployed for COVID-19 contact-tracing agents

  Tech teams supporting agents working remotely on COVID-19 surveillance efforts in several U.S. cities and the state of Illinois eschew traditional IT and opt for cloud platforms.

• August 27, 2020 27 Aug'20

  Cisco seeks better voice quality with BabbleLabs buy

  Cisco acquires California-based BabbleLabs to enhance Webex voice quality through better noise suppression, a feature already used by competitors Google and Microsoft.

• August 26, 2020 26 Aug'20

  Salesforce confirms around 1,000 layoffs after monster quarter

  Salesforce says COVID-19 did not precipitate the layoff of about 1,000 employees, but the pandemic did show the company where customer needs are headed.

• August 26, 2020 26 Aug'20

  S/4HANA helps Queen of Raw improve textile sustainability

  Queen of Raw's S/4HANA-based textile marketplace app is helping suppliers of the fashion industry reduce waste by keeping unused inventory out of landfills.

• August 26, 2020 26 Aug'20

  PC sales soar as pandemic restructures the computer market

  There's no question that the pandemic has bolstered PC sales. But analysts disagree on whether rising PC ownership means the computer market has reached a sustainable new height.

• August 25, 2020 25 Aug'20

  Zoom outage blamed on application bug

  In a statement released late Monday night, Zoom apologized to customers and said it was focused on scaling the cloud technology behind the video conferencing service.

• August 25, 2020 25 Aug'20

  Zendesk Support, Sunshine CRM expand data sharing, analytics

  New Zendesk Explore Enterprise analytics and data visualization tools enable small and midsize users to create dashboards to share across organizations.

• August 24, 2020 24 Aug'20

  Aaron Au looks back on SuccessFactors, looks ahead at Gloat

  Aaron Au co-founded SuccessFactors, which helped bring about HR's shift to cloud-based platforms. Here's how Au, now chief strategy officer at Gloat, changed the face of HR software.

• August 21, 2020 21 Aug'20

  OnwardMobility leans on nostalgia in new BlackBerry

  OnwardMobility is betting the return of the physical keyboard to its new BlackBerry will garner fans among mobile professionals. The phone is set for release next year.

• August 20, 2020 20 Aug'20

  Time is right for connected worker platforms

  In this Q&A, Parsable CEO Lawrence Whittle explains why the COVID-19 era may make a strong case for connected worker technologies.

• August 20, 2020 20 Aug'20

  Sen. Kamala Harris concerned about AI's use in HR

  If U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris becomes vice president, she may use her new position to seek action over the use of AI in HR, especially around facial analysis technologies.

• August 20, 2020 20 Aug'20

  Ex-TiVo head Shull may be the fresh face Poly needs

  Poly chooses ex-TiVo exec Dave Shull for CEO, a move some UC analysts say will bring a fresh perspective to the company. Others are less enthusiastic.

• August 19, 2020 19 Aug'20

  Salesforce pulls plug on Einstein Voice Assistant

  Salesforce's voice assistant made a big splash at Dreamforce last year, but the AI tool -- personified with the Einstein brand -- didn't survive the pandemic.

• August 18, 2020 18 Aug'20

  High Surface Duo price limits phone's appeal

  Microsoft is pitching its new dual-screen Surface phone as a productivity powerhouse. Experts said the high Surface Duo price tag will limit its potential market.

• August 18, 2020 18 Aug'20

  E-commerce business growth slows, but still a boom period

  As the world partially reopens businesses shuttered due to the pandemic, new e-commerce tech investments may make gains from earlier this year permanent.

• August 18, 2020 18 Aug'20

  Back-to-work planning gets help from IBM and startups

  Back-to-work planning is prompting deeper integration of data in HCM systems, something IBM and Workday are doing jointly. It's also prompting new uses for people counting systems.

• August 14, 2020 14 Aug'20

  SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, HPE to provide SaaS-like option

  A new partnership between SAP and HPE enables SAP systems to run on HPE GreenLake, providing a way for customers to have public, cloud-like deployments in their own data centers.

• August 14, 2020 14 Aug'20

  ServiceNow adds Uber to its pandemic planning tool set

  ServiceNow has added an Uber module to its 'Safe Workplace suite,' a pandemic planning tool set. The idea is to help employees return to the office.

• August 13, 2020 13 Aug'20

  GE Digital's transformation rocky but ongoing

  In this Q&A, GE Digital CEO Patrick Byrne discusses how the company is back in the GE fold, GE's digital transformation lessons, and how the COVID-19 crisis affects manufacturers.

• August 13, 2020 13 Aug'20

  Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise embraces RingCentral UCaaS

  The RingCentral partnership means Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise's on-premises customers can stay with the vendor and get better cloud-based communications than ALE currently provides.

• August 10, 2020 10 Aug'20

  Samsung Galaxy Unpacked highlighted Microsoft partnership

  Product integrations unveiled at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked could benefit users of Samsung devices and the Microsoft Office productivity suite.

• August 07, 2020 07 Aug'20

  SAP S/4HANA Cloud interest increasing

  In this Q&A, Jan Gilg, president of SAP S/4HANA, discusses the current state of S/4HANA Cloud and how interest in the SaaS version of SAP's ERP has grown during the pandemic.

• August 05, 2020 05 Aug'20

  Penn State graduates from legacy ERP to SAP S/4HANA

  Penn State University recently completed a greenfield SAP S/4HANA implementation to replace an old COBOL-based system with a modern, transformative ERP.

• August 05, 2020 05 Aug'20

  SIP phones support coming to Microsoft Teams

  Microsoft plans to add SIP phone support to Teams next year. The move will significantly increase the phone options for enterprises using the cloud-based collaboration service.

• August 03, 2020 03 Aug'20

  Microsoft puts Universal Print in preview

  Microsoft says cloud-based Universal Print simplifies printer management by replacing on-premises infrastructure. The service is available through 365 on Windows 10 devices.

• August 03, 2020 03 Aug'20

  Adobe AI-based Predictive Audiences added to Marketo Engage

  Adobe adds Predictive Audiences to Marketo Engage. The personalization tool is geared for users who manage marketing messaging to live and online event attendees.

• July 31, 2020 31 Jul'20

  ASUG/DSAG members like S/4HANA, but implementations still lag

  S/4HANA is viewed positively by most SAP customers, according to a new survey of ASUG and DSAG members, but complexity of an S/4HANA move may be delaying implementation projects.

• July 30, 2020 30 Jul'20

  Congress explores pros, cons of remote work trends

  Remote work trends in the private sector are getting fresh attention from U.S. lawmakers. Two hearings last week looked at aspects of this shift to flexible and full-time remote work.

• July 30, 2020 30 Jul'20

  Yammer redesign includes tighter Microsoft Teams integration

  The Yammer redesign underscores Microsoft's renewed commitment to the social networking app after years of speculation that it would discontinue the product and focus on Teams.

• July 29, 2020 29 Jul'20

  ADP starts reopening offices, stays firm on HCM plans

  In an earnings call, ADP CEO said the company will manage the COVID-19 pandemic just like it has previous crises. It will take the long view and maintain its HCM investment.

• July 29, 2020 29 Jul'20

  Oracle CX head Rob Tarkoff: Acquisition integrations complete

  The executive vice president of CX and Oracle Data Cloud discusses how acquired technologies have been fully integrated into Oracle's customer experience SaaS application stack.

• July 27, 2020 27 Jul'20

  What's next for SuccessFactors HR after Qualtrics IPO?

  After it acquired Qualtrics, SAP said the experience management software company would be core to its SuccessFactors HR strategy. Then SAP decided to spin it out in an IPO.

• July 27, 2020 27 Jul'20

  Layoffs narrow gender pay gap, but equity battle continues

  The gender pay equity gap improved a little in the second quarter, but the results stem from recent layoffs, especially among women in hospitality and retail industries.

• July 27, 2020 27 Jul'20

  Microsoft contemplates new DaaS product, 'Cloud PC'

  Unexpected consumption costs mar companies' adoption of the cloud. The reported Microsoft Cloud PC, with per-user pricing, could ease that issue.

• July 27, 2020 27 Jul'20

  SAP floats Qualtrics IPO 2 years after acquisition

  SAP's decision to spin off Qualtrics in an IPO will likely benefit both companies, analysts said.

• July 24, 2020 24 Jul'20

  Microsoft Teams walkie-talkie launches for frontline workers

  Microsoft Teams can now turn your smartphone into a walkie-walkie. The feature recently launched in public preview on Android mobile devices.

• July 24, 2020 24 Jul'20

  Microsoft powers up return-to-work apps

  COVID-19-related return-to-work apps are getting the attention of Microsoft, which has released the app built on its Power Platform to help manage people and facilities.

• July 23, 2020 23 Jul'20

  New Microsoft Lists tracks info in 365 productivity suite

  Microsoft Lists, launching in July, is intended to help organizations store and track selected information from 365. Lists will come with the productivity suite.

• July 23, 2020 23 Jul'20

  SAP and IBM deepen partnership to boost digital transformation

  SAP and IBM are enhancing their longstanding partnership by teaming up to help companies develop industry-specific applications on SAP Industry Cloud and move to S/4HANA.

• July 23, 2020 23 Jul'20

  G Suite users glad to finally get unified collaboration interface

  Google has added team project channels and video conferencing to the G Suite app Gmail. The move provides G Suite with its first unified interface for collaboration.

• July 23, 2020 23 Jul'20

  Tech virtual conferences plagued by problems, boredom

  Tech vendors staging virtual events during the pandemic have stumbled in trying to reproduce the in-person conference experience. Some have succeeded.

• July 21, 2020 21 Jul'20

  SAP creates contingent employees market as COVID-19 response

  SAP Fieldglass has created a marketplace for finding contingent employees. It was created in response to COVID-19, and will operate through the end of the year.

• July 21, 2020 21 Jul'20

  Microsoft releases voice of the customer platform

  Microsoft takes on Qualtrics with Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, a customer experience feedback tool native to its platform for retailers and B2B users.

• July 21, 2020 21 Jul'20

  Salesforce beefs up e-commerce order management features

  Salesforce adds B2C-friendly order-management features to support internationalization of e-commerce, as well as pre-built integrations to channels such as Google and Instagram.

• July 20, 2020 20 Jul'20

  SAP, Siemens partner to advance digital manufacturing

  A new deal between SAP and Siemens combines SAP ERP systems with Siemens Teamcenter PLM platform, enabling companies to develop an end-to-end digital thread for manufacturing.

• July 20, 2020 20 Jul'20

  Full-time remote work trend has its doubters

  A new Gartner survey projects that about half of all office workers will continue to work remotely full-time once the pandemic ends. Not everyone agrees with the forecast.

• July 17, 2020 17 Jul'20

  Microsoft Teams users seek better channel management tools

  Microsoft has kept two highly demanded channel management features for Microsoft Teams on the backlog since 2018.

• July 16, 2020 16 Jul'20

  Salesforce Pardot, Interaction Studio get feature boosts

  Salesforce adds Einstein AI, as well as personalization and data visualization features from its acquisitions of Evergage, Datorama and Tableau, to Marketing Cloud.

• July 16, 2020 16 Jul'20

  Citrix-Microsoft partnership aimed at Azure, Office

  A new Citrix-Microsoft team-up is intended to ease the challenges of dealing with a hybrid workforce. The companies aim to improve moving to the cloud and working digitally.

• July 16, 2020 16 Jul'20

  SAP, HR vendors turn inward, work to increase Black employees

  HR vendors are paying attention to the Black Lives Matter protests roiling a nation. They are looking at their own demographics and reevaluating their internal practices.

• July 16, 2020 16 Jul'20

  Zoom and DTEN to release home video conferencing device

  DTEN plans to release an all-in-one device for Zoom video conferencing at home.

• July 15, 2020 15 Jul'20

  SAP security vulnerability could affect 40,000 customers

  More than 40,000 SAP systems could be vulnerable to a security flaw that allows attackers to gain access to SAP systems. SAP released a patch to mitigate the vulnerability.

• July 14, 2020 14 Jul'20

  Acquia launches digital experience platform

  Acquia's digital experience cloud aims to create a more marketer-friendly environment in its historically developer-centric platform based on Drupal.

• July 14, 2020 14 Jul'20

  COVID-19 recession looms for PC market

  The PC market will likely contract as 2021 nears, analysts say. The second quarter was a positive one for PCs, as companies bought laptops to enable remote work.

• July 14, 2020 14 Jul'20

  Broken Pega RPA bots can heal themselves with new AI feature

  Pegasystems robotic process automation tools, popular in contact centers, add AI capabilities that allow some RPA bots to fix themselves.

• July 10, 2020 10 Jul'20

  Clariba partners with SAP clients for intelligent enterprise

  In this Q&A, Marc Haberland, founder of Clariba, explains why SAP needs partners to co-innovate with customers on applications that enable the intelligent enterprise.

• July 10, 2020 10 Jul'20

  Slack acquires directory startup Rimeto to create social network

  Slack acquired business directory software maker Rimeto in a bid to promote more social connections on its platform.

• July 10, 2020 10 Jul'20

  Investors, lawmakers say HR data should be public

  Large investors argue that HR data on diversity and even engagement is critical to understanding the risks that public firms face. They want the data standardized and published.

• July 09, 2020 09 Jul'20

  Microsoft Teams to get 7x7 video layout by late August

  Following months of user uproar, Microsoft Teams will get a 7x7 video layout by the end of August.

• July 09, 2020 09 Jul'20

  CCPA regulation enforcement begins; Salesforce an early target

  Users of marketing, sales and e-commerce clouds -- and vendors, too -- are vulnerable to legal action under the CCPA, as enforcement begins and civil suit plaintiffs cite the data privacy law.

• July 08, 2020 08 Jul'20

  Citrix vulnerabilities affect ADC, Gateway, SD-WAN

  Citrix vulnerabilities in several of its networking products expose its customers to hackers looking to infiltrate computing systems.

• July 07, 2020 07 Jul'20

  Microsoft launches Windows File Recovery tool

  Despite the prevalence of cloud storage and data backups, important files are still lost. Microsoft's Windows File Recovery tool aims to address the problem.

• July 02, 2020 02 Jul'20

  Voice biometrics for CX detects customer age, fraud

  As of now, Nuance voice age-detection features are for security teams that want to prevent fraud and to route service calls. Analyst sees potential for marketing personalization.

• July 02, 2020 02 Jul'20

  Microsoft-Cisco video interoperability delayed until later in 2020

  Microsoft and Cisco said a long-awaited integration between their video conferencing room systems, originally slated to launch in early 2020, is still on track for release this year.

• July 02, 2020 02 Jul'20

  Manufacturers turn to servitization for competitive advantage

  Servitization leads to more resilient and profitable businesses, but only a few manufacturers are fully enabled to adopt the new model, according to IDC.

• July 01, 2020 01 Jul'20

  Feds nix college degree requirement for merit-based hiring

  President Trump has ordered federal agencies, which employ 2.2 million, to move to merit-based hiring by the end of the year. This may require an HR technology upgrade.

• June 30, 2020 30 Jun'20

  Citrix microapps look to ease office reopening

  With new Workspace microapps, Citrix is looking to make it easier for offices to reopen. Company representatives said the tools were informed by the firm's own experiences.

• June 30, 2020 30 Jun'20

  Workday admits to Black diversity problem, pledges to improve

  Workday makes HR tools, including diversity software, for half of the Fortune 100. But Black employees make up less than 3% of its own workforce, an issue Workday vows to address.